Problem of conservative reactionary ultra-left
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20101212/COLUMNISTS106/12120304
December 12, 2010
In a society that has abolished every kind of adventure the only
adventure that remains is to abolish the society. Anarchist
slogan, France 1968
--
I recently came upon an article informing me that the esteemed
Berkeley, Calif., city council was debating whether to honor the Army
private who may have given classified information to Wikileaks. I had
to smile a little bit at that. Apparently, no one has paid attention
to them for a while (not since they kicked out the Marine Recruiting
station as "unwelcome intruders") prompting someone over there to
think that it was time to do something really stupid controversial
something really stupid and controversial.
If you're a "Republican Conservative," try to resist tarring all
liberals with that brush. Most of the Berkeley leftists are as far
from the liberal mainstream as some of the wackier militias are from
mainstream conservatism. Even among some of my very liberal friends
and family, the pronouncements and excesses of the hard-core Berkeley
contingent are not given much (if any) credence. And if you've ever
spent any time in the area just outside the UC Berkeley campus, then
you know that it is literally a living museum of Sixties
counter-culture "culture," occupying a sort of misfit island even in
the very liberal/progressive Bay Area.
I think we have hit the point where you can almost say that the
denizens of Berkeley constitute a sort of ultra-conservative
reactionary wing of the left (strange as that may sound), being
apparently unable to let go of the past and move on from the Sixties.
That includes the twenty-somethings who mourn having missed "The
Movement," despising the stultifying boredom of a society that is
removing all adventure except for that found in video games.
In a way, I can understand the attraction for a lot of people. The
old guard of the Sixties loves to reminisce about battles with cops
back when you could seriously get your head broken on national TV,
even in places like Berkeley. Back then, it took some courage to
stand up to "the Establishment." No matter if you think that much of
it was wrong-headed, engaging in violent protest imparted a similar
sort of bonding experience for the children of privilege that the
poor and lower middle-class were experiencing on a much more
intense level - in Vietnam.
And then something happened. In many parts of the country, the
"counter-culture" became the establishment.
And then something else happened; many of the former free-love "turn
on, tune-in, drop out" generation turned magically into no-fun and
unceasingly moralistic busy-bodies who attempted to place a sort of
condom of rules, regulations, and restrictions over the entire
country, doing so (as C.S. Lewis put it) with the happy approval of
their own consciences. If there is a source for the incoherency of
many on the left, it may be that they have yet to come to grips with
the juxtaposition of the nostalgic desire for untrammeled freedom and
the concurrent impulse to trammel the h-ll out of every last vestige
of freedom, all in the cause of making sure everyone plays nice and
is never, ever offended by anything.
Those are two things that are hard to square within any rational
framework. For those who hang on to the Sixties and the anarchist
mindset like a sacred talisman, while simultaneously being pushed
politically to a point where they have to defend the soft tyranny of
smiley-face fascism, rationality is simply too much of a burden to be
carried any further.
And so we get the preening posers on the Berkeley city council
celebrating the exploits of Wikileaks, even as they do enormous
damage to the current administration.
Standard-issue liberals take note; they don't seem to care that we
have a Democratic administration in the White House. As far as
Berkeley and Wikileaks are concerned, the far-right starts with
President Obama and just goes further right from there.
.
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